July 13, 2004

Consider approving site plan SP-10-62-03:  Wisconsin Apartments, located at 1710 W. 7^th Street. 

Jeff Tully, Planner, presented the staff report.  He said the Wisconsin Apartment site plan proposed a 25 unit, multi-family apartment building at the northwest corner of West 7^th and Wisconsin Streets.  The subject property along with properties adjacent to the east and west were zoned RM-2 (Multiple-Family Residence District).  The site was bordered on the west by the Fraternal Order of the Eagles Lodge and to the east by some multiple-family residential units.  The area was zoned C-5 (Limited Commercial District) to the north which was the College Hotel and the recently completed SHEPCO Tire Store.  To the south of the subject property were single-family homes on large lots. 

He said the subject property was also part of the area being discusses for the 6^th Street Area Plan which was the following item on the agenda.

He said RM-2 zoning required a minimum lot area of 2,000 square feet for each dwelling unit.  The subject property at approximately 50,997 square feet allowed for a permitted density of as many as 25 dwelling units on that site.  The submitted site plan proposed 25 units in one building, 15 one bedroom units, and 10 two bedroom units located on two floors. 

The submitted site plan proposed the apartment building to be sited on the northern half of the subject lot and oriented east and west.  The parking lot would provide 39 off-street parking spaces including two handicapped accessible spaces.  Access to the sites parking lot would be off of Wisconsin and there would be two access points.

While the submitted site plan met the City Code requirements, in terms of the allowed density for the RM-2 zoning and the applicant had worked to provide compatibility with surrounding land uses, Planning Staff remained concerned with the number of dwelling units proposed for that project.  He said although permitted by the existing zoning, it did not appear to be in conformance with the Comprehensive Plan, Horizon 2020.  He said based on the density proposed by the site plan that project fell into the category of high density residential development which was a density of 16 to 21 dwelling units per acre.  Based on Horizon 2020, high density residential development was appropriate in locations near high intensity activity areas or other high density residential developments, neither of which appear to be true to the subject property.

He said Planning Staff had asked the applicant to consider a less intensive density for the subject property, such as medium density residential development reflecting an overall density of seven to fifteen dwelling units per acre which would provide a better transition.  He said this site plan was permitted by current zoning and staff recommended approval of the site plan with a number of conditions as identified in the site plan review document.

Commissioner Schauner asked what the minimum number of parking spaces for 25 dwelling units was.

Tully said he believed that number was slightly over what was required by code which was 38 off-street parking spaces based on the number of dwelling units.

Commissioner Schauner said this location had a maximum number of dwelling units and exceeded the minimum parking spaces by one.

Tully said correct.

Commissioner Schauner asked if there was an alleyway that provided fire access to the west end of that building from that driveway.

Tully said no.  He said that location for fire access was within the minimum standards required by the Fire Department.  He said it met the code compliance for fire standards in terms of being able to provide fire access to that location.  He said this access had been reviewed extensively by the Fire Department and it met their code requirements.

Emily Hill, Lawrence, spoke on behalf of the Pinckney, Old West Lawrence, and Hillcrest Neighborhood Associations.  She said the architect met with their neighborhoods on several occasions and they believed that the architect made a sincere attempt to lessen the impact on the existing neighborhoods, but no matter how good an architect he was it was impossible to disguise that proposal.  She said the proposal was a 25 unit apartment building squeezed onto a 1.2 acre lot.  She said the proposal was 21.4 units per acre development which was more than a high density apartment building.   She said Horizon 2020 defined high density as 16 to 21 units per acre which she called “maximum density.” 

She emphasized that their three neighborhoods, Pinckney, Old West Lawrence, and Hillcrest did not object to a multi-family development on that site.  She said they were believers in in-fill development and they were excited for the potential of a low or medium density, multi-family development to help revitalize the neighborhood and to make a positive contribution to what they saw as a fragile but very important part of Lawrence.

The central problem with the proposal was not because it was multi-family development or that it would change the neighborhood, much of which they acknowledged that the neighborhood was ready for growth and change, the problem was that it did not comply with City Code and it directly contradicted the fundamental principles of Horizon 2020 and therefore it did not meet the conditions for approval of a submitted site plan.

She said out of respect for the City Commission’s time they had attempted to distill the violations of both City Code and Horizon 2020 into three central points which were:

1. Both City Code and Horizon 2020 required that in-fill development be compatible with adjacent and surrounding residences and uses in order to merit City Commission approval;

2. Horizon 2020 called for appropriate transition between low and high density developments; and

3. Horizon 2020 explicitly ruled out the possibility of placing a high density development on the corner of two local residential side streets.

She said the developer had not addressed the impact to the north of a three story maximum density development over-looking 6^th Street at the main gateway into town.  She said City Code read that developments should be landscaped to be in “harmony with adjacent land uses and would provide a pleasing appearance to the public.” Yet the developer appeared not to have considered the view from 6^th Street or the view from east or west.  She said the developer had not addressed the impact on the one and two story low density to the east.

She said these rentals provided reasonably priced housing for a number of families with children who had lived there for a long time and no one had asked the question on the impact of those families.

In summary, judging from the plan that was submitted, the conditions required for approval of the site plan, per section 20-1432 of the City Code, could not be met.  Based on the evidence presented, this site plan failed on two out of seven conditions required for approval.

She presented to the City Commission a handout of proposed revisions from the neighborhood of the Planning Office’s findings.  She said from those seven conditions, the site plan failed to meet both (b) and (e).  She said they had come up with proposed revisions to the Planning Office’s finding.  

She said the proposed revision to (b) “The proposed arrangements of buildings off-street parking, access lighting, landscaping, and drainage was compatible with adjacent land uses.”  She said their proposal was to: “As revised and submitted, the proposed arrangement of the apartment building, off-street parking, access, lighting, landscaping and drainage were incompatible with adjacent land use.  The incompatible elements include, but are not limited to, arrangement of the apartment building, including building height, location and arrangement of off-street parking landscaping.

She said the second requirement which the site plan did not meet was in regard to landscaping.  The neighborhoods proposed the following revision to the site plan reviews findings which was “Although the site plan meets the minimum requirement as mandated in City Code, the landscape berm on 7^th Street has allowed reduction of interior landscaping to 10%.  In part, as a result of this reduction, and of the focus on 7^th Street, the proposed development would not be in harmony with adjacent land uses to the east or the north and would not provide a pleasing appearance to the public.”  She said that was particularly true from 6^th Street, the main arterial connector between West Lawrence and Downtown and the main gateway into Lawrence.  She said the submitted site plan therefore, was not compliant with this condition required by City Code for the approval of a site plan.

In conclusion, approving the site plan as proposed would not only violate the City Code, but also essentially invalidate the significance of Horizon 2020 which was a strategic document as they as neighborhoods truly hope still had relevance and therefore they asked the City Commission to not approve the site plan.

Sean Williams, President, Hillcrest Neighborhood Association, said there had been an extraordinary political ground swell of the community support in addressing planning issues for the neighborhood.  He said the neighborhood was concerned with the amount of the traffic and the aesthetics of the neighborhood.  He said as a result, a resolution was previously presented addressing the inadequacies of decade old zoning and addressed some concerns for a plan which the City adopted.

He said in terms of zoning, they were talking about what was implied, what was on record, what was practiced, and what they wished today.  He said he drove by 8^th and Ohio to remind himself of bad use of proper zoning.

He said as a realtor, he had discovered in investigating the history of development in Lawrence, why people called for specific types of housing.  He informed the City Commission of the different styles of homes through the years.

He said as a resident living next to a multi-family high density unit, there was a difference to having a swimming pool and basketball court that served four to six family members and one that served four to six dozen tenants. 

In summary, he said he wanted to illustrate there was a non-professional ground swell of grass roots effort to get the City Commission and City Staff to address good planning.  He asked the City Commission to reject the site plan and call for a revised plan that provided for lower density multi-family living, improved screening and buffering to protect the existing neighborhoods and he also asked for neighborhood input into the building elevations.  The site plan alone was insufficient demonstration of whether or not this development would meet the neighborhood’s concerns. 

Allen Belot, Belot-Hartronft Association, LLC., said he had offered to Emily Hill to review the plans as those plans progressed. 

He stated that there were not any correct items as far as the zoning ordinance was concerned and the site plan was in compliance with the ordinance.  

John Pepperdine, President of Pinckney Neighborhood Association, said he had talked to his neighbors in getting a sense of how their community felt about this issue.  He said most neighbors could not comment because they had not seen the site plan.   He said when he looked at the big issues affecting their neighborhood, it was usually traffic.  He said whenever putting in any type of development, the number of units made a difference.  He said the proposal did not seem congruent with the surroundings, high-density traffic, or Horizon 2020. 

Belot said next month that project would be celebrating its first birthday.  He said his first pre-submittal conference was September 16, 2003 and he submitted that site plan for staff review on October 7, 2003.  He said since then, it had been through three complete staff reviews, multiple corrections, meetings with the immediate neighbors, and multiple phone conversations with the neighborhoods representative.  He said he had not tried to push this site plan through because he had an extreme sensitivity to the surrounding neighbors, especially, to the south.  He said RS-2 did not describe the nature of that neighborhood. 

He said in the whole process, he had used Horizon 2020 and the zoning ordinance to create a site plan that complied with the ordinance and complied with as many things in Horizon 2020 that he could.  He said Horizon 2020 had some contradictory goals.  He said he tried to take Horizon 2020 and include that plan into this site plan as much as possible.  He said he also attempted to bring the immediate neighbors intimately into this process.  He said he was disappointed in Hill’s comment in that they were only doing minimal landscaping because they were building significant fill along the south property line to raise the grade so they could plant some trees to screen from the neighbors property.  He said he had included his presentation about his design process and how he balanced Horizon 2020 with the zoning ordinance.  He said that design process descriptively and graphically explained the analysis that he went through in regards to the location of the building, massing, parking, buffering both visually and sound, solar, and wind.

He said when he first started this project, he said he was looking at 20 units, 10 two bedrooms and 10 three bedrooms units.  He said from his professional perspective, concerning apartments, people did not rent dwelling units, but bedrooms.  He said bedrooms converted to people and people converted to density because it was people that made the noise, drove the cars, and have the parties that generated trash.  He said he quickly rejected the 10 two bedrooms and 10 three bedroom units because that interpreted to 50 tenants.   He said he dropped back to 15 one bedrooms and 10 two bedrooms that had the same parking requirements and reduced to 35 tenants.  He said from his point of view, he did reduce the density and that was in the confines of the zoning ordinance.  He said this was an attempt to reduce the impact of this apartment building, by reducing the density, for the southern neighbors.

He said the zoning ordinance recognized that three bedroom units did have a greater impact on a neighborhood in the development because it increased the parking requirements for three bedroom apartments by 60%.  He said he had reduced the density and was in compliance with the ordinance.  He said they had made an attempt to integrate and be compassionate toward all the neighbors and he hoped that the City Commission would concur with the staff report and grant this site plan.

Price Banks, Attorney, spoke on behalf of the applicants.  He said he was surprised to hear the discussion about density because he had not heard that before when they were talking about zoning.  He said probably some of the confusion came from all of the debate that went on when they discussed PUD’s (Planned Unit Developments) and the various types of density and other ways that the development could be affected.  He said they were not talking about a PUD or granting zoning.  He said zoning did set the density, standards, parking standards, height limitations, and the bulk limitations. 

He said Horizon 2020 was the Comprehensive Plan and that plan was implemented by zoning, Capital Improvement Programs, Subdivision Regulations, and a number of other governmental actions and ordinances.  He said Horizon 2020 was not an ordinance that established standards.

He discussed the character of the site and the location of the building.  He said the intention was to place the building on the site as far away from 7^th Street and far away from the properties to the south as possible.  He said that strategy resulted in a considerably lower profile for the building, if it was viewed from the south because of the slope of the site the building would sit much lower on the site.  The floor level at the upper story of the building would be substantially below the grade of 7^th Street.  In reality, because of the elevation south of 7^th Street, the view from the residences in that area would be the roof of the structure on the site.  If that structure was moved up to 7^th Street, that structure would be moved up in elevation to the point where there was a three story structure looking out on 7^th Street, similar with the situation at Highpointe Apartments.  The high density development was one property removed to the west of the proposed development and had access to 7^th Street.  He said this property did not take access onto 7^th Street and it was illogical to consider that it would create traffic onto 7^th Street west of Wisconsin street because there was no place to go.  The Highpointe Apartments have parking lots on 7^th Street.

He said the planned placement of the building would also result in substantial noise attenuation because of the topographic buffer as well as the distance.  He said the development of the site was simply not possible to perch the building on top of the hill.  The excessive earth work would be astronomically expensive and it would spoil the natural features of the site contrary to the requirements of Horizon 2020.

He said 6^th Street was looked at as a gateway into Lawrence. He said when crossing 6^th and Iowa there were apartment buildings (Highpointe Apartments).  He said those apartments were closer to 6^th Street than the proposed apartments.

Banks said he was confused about the density being lowered.  The zoning ordinance provided that development in the RM-2 District have a minimum lot area of 2,000 square feet per dwelling unit.  He said that was the formula used in designing this site.  The requirement for lower density flew in the face of the statutory requirements.  The statutory requirement was that zoning regulations be uniform for each class or type of building or land use throughout each district.

He said there were many examples in Lawrence where properties develop to the maximum density permitted in a district.  If property was zoned RM-2 then it could be developed to RM-2 Density and people consider that when they were paying the price for their property.  If property was zoned RD then it was appropriate for a Fraternity or Sorority House.  He said in this case, the owner invested in the property in reliance of ordinance provisions and those provisions should not now be changed without a change in zoning.  The plan conformed with all applicable regulations and the requirement to lower the density was going to impose a hardship on the owner.

He discussed the concern about compatibility with the neighborhood.  He said the properties to the south were single-family homes on large lots, to the west were high density apartments and the Eagles Lodge, to the east was a mix of multi-family dwellings and directly to the north were commercial.

He said there was concern about being next door to multi-family, but next door to that structure would be the Eagles Lodge, additional multi-family, the College Motel, and the tire store.   He said it was 50 feet from 7^th Street and considerably more from the nearest neighborhood.  He urged the City Commission to approve the site plan in accordance to staff’s recommendation.

Commissioner Highberger said he was generally reluctant to disapprove a site plan.  However, this was an extremely dense proposal next to some extremely low density residential housing units.  He said to him this seemed a gross violation of Horizon 2020 and he did not believe that it was compatible with the adjacent uses and for that reason he could not approve the site plan.

Commissioner Hack said these were the types of decisions that were difficult for the City Commission to make when a property had been purchased with the understanding of certain zoning in place.  She said when Horizon 2020 and the zoning conflict and it was left up to the City Commission to decide, the Commission needed to rely on staff.  She said when looking at the staff report there was clearly a conflict in the mind of staff of how this issue should be handled.

Commissioner Schauner referred to part of the staff report which quoted in part, Horizon 2020, Chapter 5 which stated:  “The design and development of all new high density residential district should be carefully controlled to ensure compatibility with surrounding uses, adequate screening and buffering, and attractive appearance from nearby roadways and a high quality environment.”  He said part of this City Commission’s responsibility involved that careful control to ensure compatibility.  He said he did not think that high density was compatible with the surrounding uses.  He said this development provided maximum density and minimum everything else.  As such, it did not satisfy for him the compatibility standards that should apply to this project or future projects if the City Commission was genuinely going to give full play to the clear public policy statements in Horizon 2020.  He said he did not support the site plan as proposed.

Commissioner Dunfield added that when looking at the alternatives that were studied in terms of the placement of that building on the site, the architect made a good case for moving that building away from 7^th Street and for providing the type of parking and buffering, but that very fact indicated the difficulty of the project from a point of view of making a transition to the neighborhood.  A person did not generally think of a good neighbor as being someone who moved as far away from the street in a parking lot to separate himself from its neighbors.  He said he did not mean that to be insulting or sarcastic, but it indicated that there was too much trying to be placed on a small piece of ground in order for that transition to happen gracefully.  He said that indicated that the transition was not there and he did not support the site plan.

Mayor Rundle said he agreed in that the Comprehensive Plan was not prescriptive, but the courts were supportive on reliance on the Comprehensive Plan.  A person would get into trouble when deviating from that plan without cause.

He asked Finger if the City Commission needed to make a finding on this proposal.

Finger said yes, the finding would need to be made based on the criteria in the staff report.

Belot said they were formally requesting to withdraw the plan.

Corliss said the plan had formally been withdrawn.

Mayor Rundle asked if there was any guidance that would be helpful to staff.

Finger said guidance would be helpful to staff.  She said she anticipated that the applicant would be interested in a re-submittal.

Belot said he did not want negative marker against his site.  He suggested starting from scratch.

Finger said if the City Commission could give direction, it would be helpful to all of the parties.

Belot said he did not want to be in a situation where he had a plan that had been denied and also, if he came back with another plan that did not meet the City Commission’s standard for a significant change.

Corliss said the applicant could submit a new site plan tomorrow.  He said Belot was speaking on behalf of the property owners and had withdrawn the site plan application and therefore, the City had no action to take.